AstraZeneca issued a commitment to “follow the science” and not cut corners with a promising coronavirus vaccine.
The company also vowed to offer broad and equitable access around the world for its COVID-19 vaccine AZD1222.
AstraZeneca employs 1,500 in Delaware.
The release from the company comes after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief indicated that the agency is willing to fast track a coronavirus vaccine before Phase 3 trials.
There have been calls to speed up the rolling out vaccines from AstraZeneca and others. Another worry is that first-world nations would corner the market on vaccines and leave poorer nations without the tools to fight to virus.
AstraZeneca gets $1 billion-plus U.S. government grant for fast-tracking coronavirus vaccine
AstraZeneca is implementing a clinical development program that will enroll in excess of 50,000 volunteers, including 30,000 in the US, in Latin America, Asia, Europe, Russia and Africa that will provide data for ethnically diverse populations.
The company also vowed to “put patients first” and will continue to work with governments and other organizations towards broad and equitable global access to the vaccine, scaling up manufacturing with independent parallel supply chains around the world to produce billions of doses to a consistent and high standard of safety and efficacy.
Pascal Soriot, CEO said: “In recent weeks we have seen an increasing number of questions around the safety and availability of vaccines to fight this terrible COVID-19 pandemic and I want to reiterate my commitment that we are putting science and the interest of society at the heart of our work. We are moving quickly but without cutting corners, and regulators have clear and stringent efficacy and safety standards for the approval of any new medicine, and that includes this potential COVD-19 vaccine. We will remain true to our values as we continue our efforts to bring this vaccine broadly and equitably to billions of people around world.”
In July 2020, interim results from the ongoing Phase I/II COV001 trial were published in The Lancet and showed positive results for the vaccine.
Recent supply announcements with Russia, South Korea, Japan, China, Latin America and Brazil take the global supply capacity towards three billion doses of the vaccine.
AZD1222 was co-invented by the University of Oxford and its spin-out company, Vaccitech.
It uses a replication-deficient chimpanzee viral vector based on a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that causes infections in chimpanzees and contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein.
After vaccination, the surface spike protein is produced, priming the immune system to attack the SARS-CoV-2 virus if it later infects the body.
